Clinton, the former secretary of state, painted elements of
Trump's campaign as "racist," saying that the current
Republican Party's leaders planted the seeds for the rise of
"extremist" candidates in Trump and Cruz, the senator from Texas.

"The death of Justice [Antonin] Scalia marked the end of an era,"
she said during a speech at the University of Wisconsin at
Madison. "That fight is revealing the worst of our politics."

"The same obstructionism that we've seen from Republicans since
the beginning of the Obama administration, the same disregard for
the rule of law that's given rise to the extremist candidacies of
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz," she continued. "It's corroding our
democracy, and it has to stop."

Clinton called on Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, to hold a hearing as soon as the
Senate returns from its current recess.

"He says we should wait for a new president because the American
people shouldn't be denied a voice," she said. "I'd say my voice
is being ignored right now because of their obstructionism. ...
We chose a president, we chose him twice. And now Republicans are
acting like our votes didn't count."

She said the court "shapes virtually every aspect of life" in the
US.

"For a long time, the ideological bend of the court has been
leading the country in the wrong direction," she said. "We need
to focus on the court."

Reuters/Jim
Young

Clinton warned that, in just one term, with multiple
additional seats potentially opening up, the next president could
cause the Supreme Court to "demolish pillars of the
progressive movement."

She asked her Wisconsin audience who it could see a
theoretical President Trump appointing, citing his campaign
pledges to temporarily bar Muslim immigrants and deport
other immigrants living in the country illegally.

Clinton tied the Republican strategy on the Supreme Court to
larger developments within the party. She stressed
that Trump's candidacy "didn't come out of nowhere" — it was
a product of years of the GOP working to obstruct Obama by any
means possible.

"They say a Trump nomination will set their party back decades —
I agree," she said. "It will set their party back decades."

Clinton also connected what she called Trump's "racist
campaign" of questioning Obama's citizenship in 2011 with
Cruz's strategy of "holding the government hostage to get his
way."

Republicans "may just give rise to candidates who promise to do
even more radical and dangerous things, because once when
you make the extreme normal, you open the door to even worse,"
she said.